


Sickbed

by battle_cat



Series: Fury Road Ficlets [14]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 01:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11369487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/pseuds/battle_cat
Summary: Furiosa gets sick.





	Sickbed

**Author's Note:**

> For a "100 ways to say I love you" meme. The prompt was "You're warm."

“You’re warm.”

He pauses from kludging the transmission of the New Rig back into working order to press the back of his palm against her forehead.

“It’s warm in here,” she mutters, withdrawing from his touch.

“Not more than usual.” Now that he’s paying attention, she looks a shade paler than she should, and there’s sweat gathered on her brow and collarbone.

Half the Citadel is laid up with fever, and everyone who isn’t has been working double duty at something. Furiosa is adamant that the next run to Gastown not be delayed, that no one be allowed to know the Citadel is weak, and that means the convoy vehicles had better be ready.

“You’re getting sick,” Max says--but quietly, so none of the blackthumbs hear.

“I don’t get sick.”

“Never?” He intends it as a gentle tease, but she turns the full intensity of her glare on him.

“I’m fine.” She grabs a spanner and retreats under the rig.

She’s under there for a while, and he eventually gets pulled over to help with another vehicle, and so hours go by and it’s not until he hears a crash from the other side of the garage that he realizes how wrong things have gone.

Furiosa is bent over, her metal hand braced on the wall and her flesh one digging into her thigh, a storage crate’s worth of bolts scattered around her on the floor. Her skin is frighteningly hot to the touch.

“You’re burning up.”

“‘M _fine,_ ” she slurs, hauling herself upright again. “Jus’ got…dizzy for a sec.”

“You’re sick. Let’s go to your room.”

He reaches for her arm, but she jerks out of his grasp. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she mutters. She bends down to start picking up the bolts and abruptly lists to the side.

He ducks in and grabs her before she completely collapses. “Your room, let’s go.” She makes a noise of displeasure but this time she doesn’t fight him when he steers her out of the garage. In the hallway he feels her flesh hand clench tight into the collar of his jacket.

 

“She gets…bad…if the fever’s real high,” Janey tells him quietly while she mixes electrolyte broth on Furiosa’s worktable. “Belligerent. We saw it after…when she first came back here.” There’s no recrimination in her voice, but _when you weren’t here_ hangs unspoken in the air.

He’s managed to coax Furiosa out of her boots and prosthetic, and now she’s curled up in a resentful lump facing the wall, shivering under the blanket despite the sweat still clinging to her skin.

“Don’t let her go wandering around delirious,” Janey says. “Hold her down if you have to.”

“I’m _right here,_ ” Furiosa growls from under the blanket.

“Then you know it’s doctor’s orders if your man ends up sitting on you,” Janey shoots back without missing a beat. She hands Max a cup of broth poured from the jug. “Make sure she keeps drinking this.”

 

She keeps trying to escape for various tasks in between sips of broth, sitting propped up on pillows with the blanket around her shoulders.

“My rounds…”

“Toast's got 'em.”

“The sentries on the north side--”

“Reminded her.”

“Cause the Buzzards have been trying that side--”

“She knows.”

“And the engine tests on the new pursuit vehicles--”

“Ace's on it.”

“I should tell him--” She actually makes a bid to get out of bed; he leans into her and feels the heat baking off her.

“Mm-mm. Rest. You can rest.”

“Everyone is sick.”

“ _You’re_ sick.”

“If something happens--”

“'N you’re too sick to do anything about it cause you didn’t rest when you had the chance?”

She growls in frustration and it turns into a sudden, jagged cough.

He hands her the broth. “Drink more.”

 

Her cough gets worse as the night goes on, a convulsive, painful hack he’s sure sounds worse than any of the other coughing he’s heard around the Citadel. He wonders not for the first time about the state of her lungs. When she starts coughing hard enough to dry-heave he worries about her ribs.

She’s burning with fever, and the cloths soaked with cool water he presses against her chest and forehead turn warm in no time. She sleeps in fitful snatches between coughing fits, and when she’s awake she’s withdrawn and silent, curled in on herself.

She starts slipping into rough patches of nightmares, or maybe it’s the edges of delirium, but Janey wasn’t exaggerating. She wakes up fighting him as if he’s someone else, eyes wide with terror, or ready to leave for a run on the War Rig, snarling with rage when he refuses to let her stumble out of bed, until the time he really does have to hold her down, gritting his teeth and using his whole weight on top of her while she writhes and kicks and whimpers underneath him until she exhausts herself. He only rolls off her when she starts coughing so hard he thinks she might vomit--which she does, onto the floor beside the mattress, before making a final bid for the door that he has to haul her back from.

Some time near dawn he drifts off for an hour or two with an arm wrapped tight around her waist.

When he wakes up she’s turned toward him, her eyes open. She’s still sweaty, her cheeks too pale and her eyes too bright, but she looks lucid, at least for the time being.

“You’re taking care of me,” she whispers.

“'F course I'm taking care of you,” he mutters, his face half-buried in the fever-damp sheets. What else would he be doing?

She blinks suddenly, rapidly, and curls up against him, her hand fisting into the back of his shirt. He rubs long, slow strokes along her back--until she convulses in another ragged coughing fit against his shoulder.

“You’ll get sick,” she rasps when she catches her breath, pulling back to look at him as if she can see the fever creeping up.

“Probably.” He shrugs. “Might as well be sick together.” He presses his lips to her damp forehead, virtually guaranteeing it.

“Fool.” It comes out on the creaky exhale before another coughing fit. He holds her through it, then stumbles out of bed to get more broth.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr!](http://fuckyeahisawthat.tumblr.com/)


End file.
